Uninsured residents of San Diego County pay the second highest prices in the nation for prescription drugs, a California consumer advocacy group reported yesterday.

The prices that the uninsured paid for eight prescription drugs in San Diego was 78 percent more than the prices the federal government is charged for those same drugs, according to a study by the CALPIRG Education Fund.

"We are outraged that these high prices are being charged to the people who can least afford it," said Mia Scampini, citizen outreach director for CALPIRG, the California Public Interest Research Group. "It is forcing some people who need drugs to go without."

Government agencies, health maintenance organizations and other health care providers negotiate better rates on drug purchases because of the volume of drugs they buy, Scampini said.

The federal government generally is able to negotiate the lowest prices, she said. The study contained no information about the prices paid by HMOs for drugs in San Diego, or whether they were higher than in other regions.

The cost of drugs has become a major issue in the escalation of national health care costs. An estimated 42 million Americans have no health insurance, and expenditures on prescription drugs have escalated from $82 billion in 1992 to $192 billion in 2002, CALPIRG reported.

The prices of eight popular drugs were surveyed as part of the CALPIRG research. In a survey of 29 metropolitan areas, only Baltimore posted a higher average cost for the eight drugs than San Diego.

Uninsured residents of five California regions (San Diego, Fresno, San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles) pay an average of 72 percent more for drugs than the federal government.

Berney Lincoln, a holistic health practitioner with the Alternative Health Center of San Diego, said he has noticed the effects of high drug prices in recent months.

"There are a growing number of people coming to us to try to maintain their health," he said. "They are coming here because they can't afford the cost of the drugs they need and they are looking for a way of not using those drugs."

The CALPIRG report recommends including California's 6.5 million uninsured individuals and businesses in a drug-buying pool established in 2002 for state agencies.

That buying pool is negotiating pricing contracts with drug companies, but it was estimated that the state's drug costs of $137 million in fiscal 2001 could be reduced by $20 million through the buying pool.

"Buying pools are a practical, free market approach to lowering the cost of prescription drugs," Scampini said. "It allows consumers to help share in the cost-savings by letting them join the pool to buy drugs at the lower rates."

In its report, CALPIRG said it supports laws that would limit or ban gift-giving to doctors from pharmaceutical companies. The industry spends more than $4.8 billion in gifts, meals and promotional programs to persuade doctors to prescribe their medicines, CALPIRG said.

Last spring, the National Association of State Public Interest Research Group surveyed 500 pharmacies in 18 states and the Washington, D.C. In the fall, CALPIRG conducted its own survey of 50 pharmacies in California and compared its findings to the earlier study. Michael Kinsman: (619) 293-1370; michael.kinsman@uniontrib.com